One of the victims of recent historical writing has been faith in the enduring dividing lines of European history. A century ago the labels and concepts “Middle Ages,” “Renaissance,” and “Reformation” stood as firm markers of historical change and steady evolution to the “modern” world. This is no longer the case, and for business it never was: there is no easily recognized “early modern” era in business history, for many of the techniques of organization and management remain those inherited from the late Middle Ages. It is a near certainty, for example, that a partner in the Peruzzi company of 1300 would have felt quite comfortable in the counting house of the Fugger company in 1520. Yet, with the sixteenth century's growing population and its widening trade with Africa, Asia, and the New World, with the Atlantic beginning at first to equal then surpass the Mediterranean as the heart of the European economy, can we not notice a transition to something more recognizably “modern”? And transition it was, an almost seamless evolution, not a “revolution,” as business expanded in scope and complexity but not in method. In this final chapter we will examine some examples of how this transition played out.

DEMOGRAPHIC RECOVERY

The central fact of the second half of this study is the “Great Dying” of the mid fourteenth century, which if it did not inaugurate, certainly continued the assaults of recurrent war, pestilence, and famine on Europe's people.